


Being Evil is a Dangerous Endeavor

by the_seaworthy_muffin



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: BAMF Merlin (Merlin), Blowing up Castles and rubbing it in my Face?, Camelot's throne room suffers, Crack, Does it feel good, Gen, He can be dramatic too, Merlin has had enough, Not too evil Uther Pendragon, Rants, Seriously he is BAMF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29000760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_seaworthy_muffin/pseuds/the_seaworthy_muffin
Summary: Evil sorcerers get to be dramatic. Threatening. They get to crumble castles, blast people to dust, stand tall and ominous and have people cower in front of them.Merlin is supposed to be the most powerful sorcerer ever to live. He NEVER gets to be wild. He cowers for his life. Drops tree-branches on unsuspecting bandits. Hides behind crates to trip the baddies up.Well, it’s bloody unfair, and he’s had enough of it.Or: Morgana attacks, Merlin has had enough, and he decides to try his hand at being the Evil Dramatic Sorcerer of Doom. Crack ensues.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 145





	Being Evil is a Dangerous Endeavor

**Author's Note:**

> Written at top speed and not edited too thoroughly, because otherwise I seem utterly incapable of writing decent crack.  
> But really, I needed to write something like this to cheer me up. Corona Blues, everyone? *sighs a little*

“You shall pay with your life!” Morgana screeches, and raises her arms. Her eyes glow gold. Her tattered robes flap about her as if in an unseen wind as an ominous crack sounds across the room.

The guards yelp and shield their faces as the tall windows explode inwards towards them. _Shattering windows. How unoriginal_. It seems to be a staple of evil sorcerers; Merlin can’t even count the number of windows demolished over the past month in his right hand alone. Annoy them? Boom, take it out on the window.

Merlin never gets to explode windows. There is the problem of his head’s attachment to his neck, for one, but also, according to Gaius, he’s supposed to be _subtle_.

Merlin shifts a little in his position behind one of the towering pillars. Morgana isn’t making it very easy for him to discreetly dispatch her. Those fluttering dark robes, for one. He does understand how they could be a fashion statement, but they’re eye-catching enough that any magic used on her person is likely as not to be noticed by the (currently terrified) guards.

Camelot’s guards, however, are a valiant bunch. Never-mind that they’ve gone through enough Evil Sorcerers to know the drill by now. With a brave yell, they rush forward, brandishing their swords as one.

Morgana smirks. She thrusts her hand forward. The guards are sent flying across the room. Merlin hears a sickening _crack_ or two.

Merlin could swat aside Morgana with no more effort than it takes to push aside a particularly troublesome piece of furniture.

But Merlin never gets to blast people off their feet. Not in public, anyway.

Neither is he allowed to smirk evilly. Or have people cower at him. Or generally be accepted as the very dangerous figure he knows he (probably) is.

Merlin shifts a little outwards from his spot behind the pillar. It’s all nicely discreet and all, but he can’t get his bloody bearings from behind a giant slab of rock.

Morgana’s eyes flit towards him. She smirks. Again.

“Oh, little _Mer_ lin. Cowering for our life, are we?”

Absentmindedly, she flicks her fingers, and another guard who had been attempting to rush her flies backward. He lands with a giant crash.

Merlin never, never gets to blast people with his pinky. Never.

It’s the last straw.

“Oh, bloody _hell_ I am!” he all-but-yells, dusting the (proverbial) dust off his breeches. He marches out into the center of the throne room. He has a bone to pick with the witch.

“Does it make you happy, exploding windows and blasting people and- and- setting fires to tapestries?”

“What?” Morgana stares at him, dumbfounded. But Merlin would not be stopped. He’s on a roll.

“You know,” he says conversationally, “Coincidentally, you aren’t the only one who knows how to do all of these things.”

Merlin rolls up his sleeves.

“Let’s say there’s a sorcerer who has this insane amount of power bottled up in him. He could set fire to all the bloody tapestries in Albion, if he so wished. Or go put on some soot-stained tatters and claim to be the second coming of Sigan. Or bloody well topple a castle, if he so wished.”

“I don’t wear _tatters_ ,” Morgana protests from her spot by the door. Merlin silences her with an annoyed shush.

He can feel the magic crackling up within him, lighting his skin golden, blazing white-hot in his eyes. _Uh-oh_. This is straying into dangerous territory. But the words are just fighting to be out now, and Merlin has simply had _enough_ of it all.

“But nooooo, he can’t! You know why? Because he’s supposed to be the _good_ one, the considerate one, and no, Merlin, you can’t blast people to oblivion, you can’t- can’t blow things up, can’t shake the ground or summon storms or what-bloody-ever else Evil sorcerers do! Because you,” he’s almost nose-to-nose with Morgana now. He jabs a finger at Morgana’s face with each word, for emphasis. “must, be, _subtle._ ”

Morgana looks distinctly unsettled now. She flinches a little away from Merlin’s jabbing finger.

“I could never blow the castle’s ceiling to high hell, when I know I bloody well _could_!”

Far away, a distant _boom._ “So does it make you happy, rubbing it in my face, all willy-nilly and dramatic and threatening? Does it?”

Merlin leans back, finally over with his rant. But gods above and below, that felt good. He had _needed_ that. Being a sorcerer in Camelot is no mean feat.

“But you just did,” Morgana says, dumb.

“What?”

She points.

Merlin turns around. And gapes.

The entire room is in ruins. The windows, once elegant, lie in heaps of fine, glittering dust all around the floor. The floor-stones are cracked, as if in a strong Earthquake, and bits and pieces of rubble decorate the floor. The air smells distinctly of burn, and ozone, and when Merlin turns around there isn’t a single tapestry in sight.

But what’s the most shocking is the ceiling. Because- well, for lack of a better word, there isn’t one anymore.

_Oh._

Merlin hadn’t meant his magic to take his rant all that literally.

And then Merlin’s roving eyes meet the king’s.

“Are you quite finished?” Uther Pendragon asks, from behind his throne, where his loyal guards had dragged him right after the whole fiasco had begun. How had Merlin forgotten something quite so important?

Oh. Yes. He’d been carried away.

Quite violently, at that.

Merlin is a little too worn out to really fight right now.

“Are you going to execute me?” he asks.

Uther looks towards the sky-shaped hole where the ceiling used to be, and then towards Merlin.

He raises an eyebrow.

**The End!** **:)**

**Author's Note:**

> So I've always had this frustration that Merlin doesn't have enough BAMF!scenes for how awesome he is, and instead has lots and lots of whump scenes to spare. It's absurd, I thought, when he's supposed to be the MOST powerful sorcerer ever to live! Morgana, on the other hand, gets to be all Powerful and Intimidating and Impressive. But then I sat myself down and thought about it, and, well, Merlin does have this need to be subtle. For example, he wouldn't summon a storm when a little push from a tree-root would suffice. And so I Understood (and it does make those BAMF! moments infinitely satisfying when they do turn up :D) - but still, I wanted to play around with the idea a bit through fanfiction, and here this is. Hope it was as enjoying to read as it was to write! :)


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